


all behind you (all beside you)

by Muir_Wolf



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:37:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3527975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/pseuds/Muir_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Margaret/Hawkeye; Modern, strangers meeting at a wedding AU</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“That sounds like a challenge,” he says.  He doesn’t know why he’s doing this—he doesn’t usually go for prickly.  Never goes for prickly, as a matter of fact.  Has enough prickly in his professional life.  She perks up at that, though, and oh, isn’t that interesting?  She’s looking at him for the first time—really looking at him, not just looking at whatever she’d already pegged him as.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	all behind you (all beside you)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was: Hawkeye/Margaret: two miserable people meeting at a wedding au. 
> 
> (This is a modern au, as well, for reasons, like my complete inability to write that time frame outside of the context of the tv show.)
> 
> __

 

“Tell me,” he says, leaning against the wall, “how’d you drag me here, anyway?”

Beej smirks. “I had the shockingly bad taste of making you Best Man,” he says. “I must’ve been drunker than I thought.”

“That explains the asking, but the accepting?” 

“You’d never refuse Peg a thing,” BJ says. Hawkeye sighs with as much exaggeration as he can muster on short notice.

“That explains it, then,” he says. He nods his head towards BJ. “You don’t have to look so self-satisfied, y’know. Just because you married the love of your life and all.”

“What _am_ I thinking,” BJ laughs.

“What are you thinking standing here with me, when you could be out there dancing with your wife? I’ve no idea,” Hawkeye says. He smiles, terribly fond of the man standing before him.

“My _wife,_ ” BJ repeats. “You know, I don’t think I’m ever going to get tired of hearing that.” He leans forward and ruffles Hawkeye’s hair, pulling him in for a hug. “You aren’t losing me, you know,” he says.

“I know,” Hawkeye says. “Now go on, get out of here, go sweep the lady off her feet, will you?”

“All right, all right,” BJ laughs, hands up jokingly. “I’m going, I’m going.”

Hawkeye watches him walk off, bone-deep affection and something a little like loss warring within him.

“Barkeep!” a lady calls from across the pathway. Her voice draws his attention, and he sees the bottle-blonde leaning against the bar, ordering something hard, by the looks of what the bartender is pouring. Hawkeye’s done his due with the guests, and he recognizes her as one of Peg’s Army friends. Major Something-or-other, he thinks. Never been that great with names, although if he’d gotten a better look at her in the rush of greeting a couple hundred strangers, he’d have made sure to hammer it into his memory.

He eases off the wall, and starts over towards her, because he’s not about to spend the happiest day of his best friend’s life moping in the corner. He’s known this day was coming, he’d helped plan the proposal, he loves Peg, he’s happy for the both of them. Really. Truly. But he could do with some distracting.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” he says when he gets to her side, making his voice mock-throaty. She lifts an unimpressed eyebrow at him, and it shouldn’t make him smile, but it does.

“Best Man,” she says, pointing at him after a minute. “Benjamin Pierce.”

“There’s no way anybody introduced me like that,” Hawkeye says, blatantly offended. Clearly _she_ doesn’t have his lamentable memory problem when it comes to names.

“No, they introduced you as Hawkeye, so I asked, because nobody names their child that. Well, maybe hippies,” she adds, as an afterthought.

“Dad’s not a hippie, no,” Hawkeye says. They stare at each other over the rim of their glasses—Hawkeye buckles first, and takes a sip of what turns out to be whiskey. She looks mildly impressed when he doesn’t startle at the taste, and he feels even more offended—as if _he_ can’t handle his whiskey. Please. In college they drank truly awful moonshine, for no reason except they wanted to see if they could build a still. (They could.) (And then it was confiscated.) (BJ still hasn’t forgiven him that black mark on his otherwise stellar record.)

“M.D.?” she says, the sort of prodding question that means she already knows the answer. He frowns at her, vaguely remembering something.

“Nurse?” he asks after a moment. She nods.

“Which means I already know all I need to know about doctors,” she says, voice cool. He takes another sip of his whiskey and considers the merits of going back to wall-leaning. Safer, certainly, but possibly not as much fun.

“That sounds like a challenge,” he says. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this—he doesn’t usually go for prickly. Never goes for prickly, as a matter of fact. Has enough prickly in his professional life. She perks up at that, though, and oh, isn’t that interesting? She’s looking at him for the first time—really looking at him, not just looking at whatever she’d already pegged him as.

“If that’s how you want to take it,” she says, letting her voice drop to something demure. It doesn’t fool him for one damn second, though—the eyebrow she flicks in his direction could cut, if she were so inclined.

“So why are you drinking alone?” he asks. It’s a question that’s asking for trouble. He can’t find it in himself to care.

“Because I just divorced my bastard ex-husband,” she says. She says it like it should scare him off. It probably should. “Because the only reason I’m at this wedding is because Peg was one of the best nurses that ever served under me, and I didn’t want to let her down. Because I feel like it. Take your pick.”

“Where are you stationed?” he asks. Every inch of her is daring him to walk away, but he doesn’t think she wants him to. Finds, intriguingly, that _he_ doesn’t want to.

She looks at him for a long, steady moment. Weighing him up, he thinks. “I’m not,” she says at last. “I just got out. Staying with some friends, trying to decide what I want to do with my life.”

It’s not much, but her shoulders loosen a little, and he wonders just how rare it is for her to open up, just how often she lets anyone in. He doesn’t do prickly, and he doesn’t do complicated, and he doesn’t pick up gauntlets thrown by maidens fair. He also doesn’t move away.

“Huh,” he says. “BJ’s officially moved the rest of his shit out.”

He doesn’t say that he’s looking for a roommate, because he and Beej have been out of med school for five years, and he’s got money now. There’s no reason for him to need a new roommate. Nothing but the knocking silence of a place that lately has felt too big for him. He doesn’t say he’s looking for a roommate, because he doesn’t even know her. Hasn’t, he realizes suddenly, even gotten her name yet.

“Uh,” he says, feeling suddenly off-balance. The corner of her lips lift in a half-smile, and he can see in her eyes, in the set of her shoulders, how she became a Major.

“Houlihan,” she says. “Margaret Houlihan. I’m not becoming your roommate.”

“I wasn’t offering,” he says, vaguely appalled at how weak his protest sounds. He _wasn’t_ offering.

She’s still looking at him, though, a steady sort of look, as if she can see right through him. She throws back the rest of her whiskey.

“I’m not sleeping with you, either,” she says. This time, _her_ denial sounds a bit weak, and that, he finds, is an interesting prospect. Not that he was angling for that. (Not that he hadn’t considered it; he’d have to be half-dead not to have.)

“No sex and no moving in, understood,” he says. “I suppose some light-necking is out of the question?” He’s not sure if he wants her to snap at him or not, not sure yet if he likes the dance they’ve been dancing.

“Are you always this absurd?” she asks, but there’s a faint red blush rising above her low-cut dress.

“Always,” he says. It shouldn’t sound like a promise, but he’s rather afraid it does. Interesting, that. He finishes the rest of his whiskey, and sets his empty glass down next to hers.

“Well?” she asks. “Are you going to ask me to dance, or not?”

He pulls her onto the floor in answer. It’s a slow song, and they sway along, and their bodies fit together better than either would ever admit.

“So about that light-necking,” he says, his voice low in her ear, and she pulls back enough so that he can see her roll her eyes.

“Do shut up,” she says, but her eyes are sparkling and she’s still leaning in close, and this, he thinks, this could be something. He’s not sure what, but he’s rather inclined to find out.

 

-

_finis_


End file.
